Online Calculator

[EBIT]

I have an idea for an online calculator that I believe would be a major attraction to my target market.

I have the layout down on paper and the workings lined out but before I get a developer to design the calculator I was wondering how would I go about stopping my competitors from stealing my idea for this calculator.

I have gone to close to 100 of my competitors websites and none of them have anything like this so it would be important to me to keep it exclusive for as long as possible.

Thanks.

 

[iArtist]

If its an ebit calculator, it's been done already. They are available free online.

 

[Merchant UK]

Anyone with a little bit of knowledge could knock up a simple calculator on excel, and if you have a bit of coding knowledge you can knock something up pretty quick, so as far as trying to protect a calculator, i don't think you'll have much luck

 

[janet40wood]

There are many calculators available already calculating gross profit, what if scenarios of price, volume, revenue, cost changes etc. These are just some financial calculations that i have seen on sites. All workings can be done on excel. Were you thinking more of an app?

 

[EBIT]

The calculator I am thinking of is based on a poisson distribution that is specifically styled towards a particular type of customer.

It would be a big attraction and keep people coming back to my site regularly so I would like to protect this design as much as possible as it would be easy to replicate once the idea is out there.

 

[iArtist]

The calculator I am thinking of is based on a poisson distribution that is specifically styled towards a particular type of customer.

It would be a big attraction and keep people coming back to my site regularly so I would like to protect this design as much as possible as it would be easy to replicate once the idea is out there.

Unfortunately you can only patent ( protect) working parts, you can't protect an idea. So while you could take steps to ensure your version wasn't duplicated, it could be recreated diffenrently.

 

[fisicx]

...and keep people coming back to my site regularly....

How do you know?

In any case, it's customers you need not visitors. So maybe the calculato is just going to eat up bandwidth and not generate a penny in income.

Why not offer the calculator to those who sign up or become members or whatever.

 

[EBIT]

Unfortunately you can only patent ( protect) working parts, you can't protect an idea. So while you could take steps to ensure your version wasn't duplicated, it could be recreated diffenrently.

What steps would those be - link or keyword would be great so you don't need to type out the full process.

Thanks.

 

[antropy]

What steps would those be?

You could build it in Adobe Flash so that it would be harder to get at the source code.

Or you could write the logic on the server side so that it would be impossible to get unless they hacked your webserver.

But whatever method you choose, you won't be able to stop someone seeing the calculator and writing their own copy from scratch.

 

[justinmarch]

I have an idea for an online calculator that I believe would be a major attraction to my target market.

I have the layout down on paper and the workings lined out but before I get a developer to design the calculator I was wondering how would I go about stopping my competitors from stealing my idea for this calculator.

I have gone to close to 100 of my competitors websites and none of them have anything like this so it would be important to me to keep it exclusive for as long as possible.

Thanks.

To protect the idea...

A different take on this... basically speaking I would...

Launch it well, get so many links / social mentions etc. it will make it extremely difficult for anyone to get the same traction if they replicate your idea.

Continue to improve the calculator and make updates, keeping existing users aware of those updates.

To do this you could...

• Launch in beta, to top bloggers in your niche
• Get out on the social networks
• Ask users for feedback
• Think of ways to (ethically) capture users e-mail addresses (i.e. offer free help connected with the software possibly as PDF download)

Hope this helps.